Cosmic dust particles evolve cyclically: chemically, physically and dynamically. The evolution of the dust particles traces out paths in which the universe recycles material, with analog processes to the daily recycling steps with which we are familiar: production, storage, processing, collecting, consumption, and discarding. Scientific observations and measurements of cosmic dust provide an important view onto the universe's recycling process, where we "see" dust in different dust populations: in the clouds of the interstellar medium, in molecular clouds, in the disks surrounding young stars, and in planetary systems, such as our own solar system. The static snapshots, which observations provide of dust at different stages of its life, over time, form more complete movie of the universe's complicated recycling steps.

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